There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight

We spent a few days in Olympic National Park (click link for DougVW pictures) at the under-lifegaurded Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort with Nate's family. We ate delicious chocolate cherry cake baked in the Dutch oven and hiked up Storm King Mountain for a beautiful view of Crescent Lake.

Then we headed into Seattle for Lucas and Rachel's wedding. The wedding and catching up with family were both great. If the trip wasn't already exciting enough, we pulled up for the wedding and saw a junker car catch on fire and burn itself and the really nice truck parked in front of it. 

Crabby at the Beach

Nate dug this up at the beach with Tom and Karlene and their kids.

Idaho

Yesterday evening Nate and I arrived safely home from a week in Camas County, Idaho with my family. It was great to see them and catch up on talking, teasing, and traditions (like haircuts and Ice Age II).

To get to the cabin we drove about an hour through the mountains from the nearest town (Fairfield). The cabin was (way) off the grid and had propane-powered lights (with mantles like camping lanterns) and stove, and solar-power for other things.

We did a lot of hiking, and never saw any other humans while doing so. The best hike was to the Skillern Hot Springs, where we soaked in the hot water and then dipped in the freezing stream. There were a lot of pretty views on the way there, too.

After that day my feet and legs were very sore due to old junky shoes, but thankfully Dad rigged up some excellent emergency arch supports using duct tape, a sacrificed sock, and the Leatherman knife. I really need to get new shoes, though.

The worst hike...involved several miles of no trail through the steep and scratchy underbrush, not finding our destination, and mild dehydration, exhaustion, and frustration. Character and navigation skills were built...I hope.

The south fork of the Boise River ran behind the cabin. For a few days we were entertained by stirring sticks in the icy clear water, but eventually we (and by we, I mean Holly, Dad, and I) progressed to fording it barefoot. On the other side, we panned for "gold" with a Cool Whip bowl and sent things downstream.

We had an a cappella hymnsing by the river on Sunday night, with these lyrics standing out to me (genius point to whoever identifies the song first):

And everywhere that we can be, You God are present there.

Here is a link to pictures of our first snowy evening at the cabin and exploring the hills near the cabin.

Food

I know a lot of my posts have to do with food. (By the way, check out this recipe to easily and quickly make your own hamburger buns. It's handy that you can change the number of servings, but I found that although I set the recipe for 15, I only got 9, meaning I still had to buy some buns for last night's bonfire.)

There's been a lot in the news about the causes and effects rising food prices. I've noticed the prices rising here and have cut back on some things (like hamburger buns!), but we still have plenty of healthy food to eat and groceries make up a fairly small portion of our budget. 

This past week the contrast between need and waste stood out to me. I took a bruised banana home from school (a student was going to throw it away) for my destined-for-banana-bread bag in the freezer. I was too late to save a stack of sandwich cookies from getting chucked on Friday's field trip. After school I looked down into my classroom trash and just from the top I saw a Dorito's bag with a serving left in it, a 3/4 full yogurt container with a spoon in it, and an Oreo package with several partial cookies left. I've watched kids use grapes as ammo and dump the better part of a carton of milk on the ground. And it's not just kids (who don't have to buy and cook their own food). Personally, I threw away the last bit of hummus which smelled funny, a small avacado that we cut open but was much too hard to use, and I should throw away a partial and hardened PB&J, and some seeds from a long-since-eaten squash.

I know we can't send any of these things to the people in Haiti eating dirt to fill their stomachs but to me it seems like a sign that we don't care very much. Maybe some fasting and prayer is in order.

April Eggs

"What if someone added a non-boiled egg to the boiled eggs?" a bystander asked with an innocent voice and wide eyes as I peeled the first egg destined for egg-salad sandwich spread.

I counted the eggs- seven- and mentally retraced my steps; I had placed four in the boiling water and then, taking a second glance at the large five-dozen box (I can't resist a sale!), thrown in a few more. Had I gone for an even half dozen, and the seventh egg been thrown in by a sinister sneakster?

I growled at the bystander and obvious culprit. He grinned and after some indignant prodding, and threats that he would not get any of the egg salad, neither gave me any information nor went back to his work.

I carefully tapped the second egg on the edge of an extra bowl. Boiled. Anxious eyes watched me peel it. Third egg: boiled also. Fourth and fifth eggs: neither was the one.

I came to the 6th egg. "Fifty-fifty chance," I said, raising my eyebrows. It was boiled.

"Well, what's the chances of that, that I have to hold my breath for 5 eggs worth!"

"Kind of takes the suspense out," said my sidekick, disappointed and turning to leave. He had as good as confessed.

I cracked the final egg over the bowl, fully expecting the runny egg to plop out.

Nothing. I'd been had. I whacked him. I guess I'm gullible.

Happy Birthday Grandma VW!

Happy birthday to an amazing, fun, blogging, Grandma. She always posts in honor of family birthdays, so we (family members) decided to do the same for her. Thank you, Grandma, for always making me feel like part of the family! We love you!

Spring Forward

I took this picture of daffodils beside our driveway.  The weather here is beautiful and we just finished enjoying soy-peach-grape-vanilla ice cream while sitting in the sunshine. 

Thank you to Grandma Vander Wilt for reminding us about the time change tonight. Don't forget to skip an hour of sleep, everyone!

Knitting

It seems like spring here, but I've really been getting a lot of knitting done lately since my double-pointed needles came!

Open Street Maps

Nate, in his mapping mania, has got me into openstreemap.org. It is an open source wiki (meaning anyone can edit it) map of the world. If you zoom in to any place I've lived you will* see some of my "work". (I added the Sandy Hollow campground and bike trail.) 

The site is European-based, which is reflected in some of the tagging options. I was tempted to tag Covenant Hall as "amenity: biergarten" just for fun but I resisted.

*the servers aren't uploaded immediately so you cannot yet see all my work

Gelukkig Nieuwjaar

Heather was in charge of making the traditional New Year's oliebollen (Dutch deep-fried donut balls with apples and raisins in them) at Crown Pointe. Holly and I came in to help with the frying. None of us had ever done it before, but with some advice from the residents we managed to pull it off. At the end of the afternoon, the triple batch was eaten, we smelled like oil, and the room was very sugary. Mmmm, fat balls!

From Proverbs

Soon Nate will move on from his current job and begin designing his own software. Please pray for us in this (ad)venture.

Give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.

Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, 'Who is the LORD ?'
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.

P.S. Does that make OINK, or SINK?

Happy Sinterklaas Day

After we realized that Sinterklaas Day was long over (that's when we had decided to open gifts), we decided to open our gifts to each other tonight instead. Nate gave me a very cute folding up travel Scrabble. We sat in front of the heater and played. I lost. Because Nate challenged "quo" and got "fez" on a triple letter.

Test your Typing Tempo

Here is a test that will tell you how fast you type. My family sent it to me; according to Dad, Holly has gotten 154 words per minute. My personal best right now is 90. If you want to get into the fun-spirited competitiveness while brushing up your typing skills, give it a try and post a comment with how fast you are!

Christmas decorations

Here's the results of my decorating! Now, if only Wal-Mart could wait until Thanksgiving (instead of the day after Halloween) to put out Christmas stuff.

I'm...

Mourning the death of Grandpa.
And rejoicing, always.

Mourning that he had to go through so much pain.
Singing because he's free of it.

Crying because my future children won't play Husker Du with their Great-Grandpa Hooyer in this life.
Curious if we'll do that in heaven.

Glad that I had the priviledge of having all eight grandparents present at my wedding.
Sorry that my sisters won't have that.

Missing his calm voice saying Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed by Thy name.
Praising because God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

Sad that I won't have Grandpa's silent enjoyment when I sit down at the piano after a Sunday dinner.
Smiling at what awesome sounds he must be hearing right now.

Grieving our family's loss.
Celebrating Grandpa's gain.

Your kingdom come, your will be done

I've been wanting to post the past couple days to say something about Grandpa. However, I couldn't think of much to say that hadn't already been said by Heather's post, her other post, or Janet.
Mom and Dad called last night from the hospital and put the phone to Grandpa's ear so I could talk to him, which was good. I couldn't hear him say anything but they said he knew who I was and said something. I told him I loved him, that I wished I could be there, that I'm praying for him.

I do have two things to add to Heather's list, although she said most of the good ones already:

• Him offering (threatening?) to pull our teeth out with a pliers when we told him they were loose.
• Grandpa's version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Winner gets to slap the other person's hand-- hard!

Prosser Balloon Rally

Nate and I went to watch the balloons take off early this morning. They had designs ranging from Coca-Cola ads to potato plants, and of course the colorful geometric designs. I had never seen them up close before; it was cool. To launch, they stretch them out on the ground, blow some cool air into them, and then use the torch thing to heat it up so it stands. The 1st video is of a balloon filling with hot air. It was beautiful to watch them all drifting away!

Are you Superstitious?

I'm not. We just adopted 3 kittens born on Friday the 13th (of July). They're all black. Here's the pictures!

Almost Ready!

Here's the bulletin board Mrs. E and I made yesterday. We continued the decorating today using our fabulous stapling skills. I think I'm about ready for school to start (although I have enough details to take care of in the next week). Nate and I are having a busy but fun end of the summer: we enjoyed having a visit from G & G VW last week and from Matt and Laura yesterday. We tried to take the cheese tour at Darigold but it was closed due to flooding (water, not milk). Oh well, we had a good time visiting anyway.

Save the Corn!

This corn was sitting in the field getting gross until Nate talked me into freezing corn. I now have 5 bags of corn in my freezer. I know that is nothing compared to the hundreds of quarts of corn Grandma Hooyer probably froze in her life, but it's a start! If I feel motivated, I'll do it again tomorrow.